Sandy: Dramatic Footage Of Air Rescue

Dramatic footage has been released of people being plucked from their flood-hit homes by helicopter.

Video shows New York Police Department rescue teams loading people onto a helicopter winch to safety, as flood waters rose.

But many people were not as fortunate, and details are emerging of the circumstances surrounding some of those who were killed.

An off-duty police officer drowned in his basement while rescuing his family from superstorm Sandy, police have confirmed.

The unnamed man is reported to have helped his father, girlfriend and baby into the attic of their home on the southern end of Staten Island, New York.

He then went downstairs and never returned. Fellow officers found him in the basement at about 5am on Tuesday.

"Somehow he got trapped in his basement and he drowned in the basement," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

At least 55 people died across the US and Canada, and many are still missing, including two boys aged two and four.

New York was the worst-hit city in the US. In Queens, a 23-year-old woman was electrocuted after stepping on a live wire while taking photographs of a power line that had caught fire.

"She couldn't move. She didn't have a chance,” said neighbour Renny Bhagretta, 44.

In Brooklyn, a teacher and student were crushed in the street by giant trees that came crashing down during the height of the storm.

Their bodies were discovered the next morning.

A 75-year-old Manhattan woman was reported to have died after her oxygen machine lost power.

Her grandson ran to nearby Bellevue Hospital for a manually operated tank, but the woman had already gone into cardiac arrest by the time paramedics arrived.

A 13-year-old girl was found dead under a pile of debris in the Tottenville area of Staten Island where four beach front homes were washed away.

Her mother, a church worker, was critically injured and her father, a plumber, was missing, neighbours said.

"They wanted to stay. We tried to convince them to leave. They said they didn’t think it would be that bad," said neighbour John Alleva, 47.